Wall Street titan Franklin Templeton has placed his Nasdaq-listed US Government Money Market Fund on Chain (FOBXX) on a new blockchain: Aptos.
The asset manager said Wednesday the move was a “massive step in the right direction” to “innovate on behalf of a truly decentralized and accessible financial future.”
Aptos is the blockchain behind APT, the 30th largest digital coin by market capitalization. His network was founded by part of the team behind Meta’s failed Diem project. Developers can use blockchain to create decentralized applications (dapps), launch tokens, and more.
“We chose the Aptos network because of its unique features, which meet our rigorous standards for suitability for the Benji platform,” said Roger Bayston, head of digital assets at Franklin Templeton.
FOBXX is a digitized fund that allows clients to invest liquidity in U.S. government securities, cash and repurchase agreements.
Investors can purchase shares of FOBXX and hold them in digital wallets through Franklin Templeton’s Benji Investments mobile app.
Franklin Templeton placed the fund on a number of blockchains, including Avalanche, Arbitrum, Stellar and Polygon. Avalanche was the most recent addition before Aptos, arriving in late August.
The company said FOBXX is the first and only U.S.-registered fund to use a public blockchain as a system of record to process transactions and record ownership of shares.
Franklin Templeton has been dabbling in the crypto world since 2019, when he began scanning stocks for a money market fund on the Stellar blockchain. It also announced a venture capital fund for digital assets two years ago.
Edited by Andrew Hayward
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